An example enterprise computing system includes a system that receives customer product purchase orders and another computing system that manages the manufacturing of products that are the subject of product purchase orders. A customer relationship management (CRM) computing system—namely, a system that may manage all interactions with customers, including marketing, sales, and service, for example—is one example of a computing system that may include a product purchase order computing component. Information received in a product purchase order is often provided to a manufacturing-related computing system that controls the fulfillment, including manufacturing if necessary, of the product purchasing order.
The product purchase order and subsequent processing has become increasingly automated in modern systems over the years. In many cases, however, it would be desirable for there to be user involvement to correct possible errors and in general to oversee the processing, but in a manner that does not undercut efficiencies achieved by the automation. This is especially true in a scenario where product purchase orders include very large quantities of perhaps valuable components that may have to be manufactured in order for the order to be fulfilled. One example of such a scenario is with spare parts for automobiles or other high-value products. In this scenario, product purchase orders may be received, in most cases electronically over an electronic data interface (EDI), or a business-to-business link. In this scenario, it may be that the customer does the data entry, including data entry of quantity values for certain spare parts. With customer data entry comes the possibility for operator error.
One area in which user involvement may be beneficial is in checking whether the quantity of product as specified in a product purchase order makes sense or not (that is, whether the quantity is reasonable or not). Determining this includes many considerations that makes human involvement and judgment beneficial, but simply requiring a human to check the quantity for every received order may be undesirable in many cases. In addition, because a manufacturer may have many different spare parts it produces and sells and many different customers, the task of checking whether a quantity value makes sense in a received product purchase order for a particular customer may have many variables and is not amenable to a “one size fits all” solution.